Restorative Justice: A Case Study

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Restorative justice was a system of criminal justice which focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large. This approach is based on the assumption that crime has its origins in social conditions and the relationships in the communities. Restorative justice was the name given to a variety of different practices, including apologies, restitution, and acknowledgments of harm and injury, as well as to other efforts to provide healing and reintegration of offenders into their communities, with or without additional punishment (Menkel-Meadow, 2007). It was an alternative model of criminal justice that focused on forgiveness, healing, reparation and reintegration. Unlike the traditional criminal …show more content…
It is in fact a means of engaging those most affected by a crime in determining what should be done to repair the harm and to prevent it occurring again. It is important to emphasize that a primary objective of youth conferences is to meet the victims’ needs. People who have been harmed by crime should be offered the opportunity to meet the person who harmed them whether that person is a prolific offender or not (Shapland, 2014). This essay will explain the processes and aimed of restorative justice, and the development in Australia. Then it will outline the key finding of conferencing and re-offending. Furthermore, this essay will discuss the effectives of restorative justice including the strengths and weakness associated with these approaches and its impact on participants. This essay will conclude with the success of restorative justice for juveniles especially for violence …show more content…
It was an alternative model of criminal justice that focused on repaired, restored, reconciled, and reintegrated the offenders and victims and those affected by crime (Menkel-Meadow, 2007). Tony Marshall’s definition of restorative justice draws attention to the restorative process and its outcomes, “a process whereby parties with a stake in a specific offence collectively resolve how to deal with the aftermath of the offence and its implications for the future” (Marshall, 1999). This definition seems to have driven much of the empirical research on restorative justice, which has focused more on restorative process and outcomes. For examples; how conferences are administered and run, how participants feel about conferences, how offenders make amends and how victims are healed and recover (Hayes & Daly, 2004). Restorative justice was differentiated from the traditional criminal justice system in the ways of justice. It considered crime and wrongdoing to be an offence against an individual or community, rather than the state (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2014). Restorative Justice aimed to prevent re-offending by reintegrating offenders into the community and enable offenders to undertake active responsibility for their

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